Which Entry is your favorite?

The Mafia Lounge is proud to announce its very first writing contest! The theme for this writing contest is "It Was All a Mistake." You are free to interpret the theme as you like. The rules are as follows:

Rules1. Entries must be 1000 words or less. 2. Entries must be rated PG13 or lower. 3. Entries must be related to the theme. 4. Your entry must be a new entry created specifically for this challenge. 5. You may only submit one entry. 6. You may not show your entry to anyone else or post it elsewhere on the Mafia Lounge until after the contest is over and the winner is announced. 7. Original works are recommended, but not required. Fanfiction is welcome as well!

Note: Please PM your entries to Natasha by September 10th.

Voting will begin on September 11th!

Last edited by natashasurgirl on Wed Sep 18, 2013 9:39 pm; edited 3 times in total

Another arrow flew past his head as he ducked behind a boulder, his heart racing as he considered his next action. His name was Genn, Genn Greymane, and he was running for his life. "Move Genn, Move!" He shouted to himself, shocking his exhausted body into action as he took off running again, this time towards the treeline.

His legs felt like lead, he'd been running for hours already, barely able to stay one step ahead of his pursuers. But now, they were gaining on him.

He was almost to the treeline, he was almost safe, he knew they wouldn’t follow him in there. But he wasn't fast enough, he heard the arrow before he felt it. His shoulder exploded in pain, the force was enough to send him howling and tumbling head first into the dirt.

He grabbed his shoulder and sprang up, whirling to face his foes as he ripped the arrow from his flesh. "Come on then! I'm done running from you, let’s finish this!" He ended his sentence with a howl as he burst into his werewolf form.

His attackers were on him in seconds, Mistmantle attack dogs and hunters close behind, he ripped into the first dog, shredding its throat with his claws before catching the second in mid-leap and breaking its neck. Two more arrows flew past him, while a third lodged in the head of the dog he was holding, its now lifeless form shielded him from a mortal blow.

The hunters closed in around him in a circle, two had bows drawn, while the other four wielded nasty looking spears, all had swords at their belts. Genn was surrounded, but the hunters were overconfident and advanced too close and too spread out.

Genn threw the dead dog he was holding at the archer to his left, while lunging at the archer to his right. The man let loose a wild arrow in panic, Genn sidestepped and had the pleasure of hearing the scream of the man behind him. He grabbed the bow, snapping it in two and picked the little man up by his throat. He turned, now with a human shield and advanced on the remaining hunters.

"Did you think you could get away with it, beast?" One hunter spoke. Genn snarled, "I did nothing! I never killed Lady Mistmantle! Your lord has lied to you. And lied to us all!" "Liar!" Yelled the hunter. "Your kind has brought nothing but ruin to Gilneas! You beasts slaughtered us by the thousands and destroyed our city! How can you even begin to claim innocence, for anything?"

The hunter punctuated his sentence by lunging at Genn’s side with his spear, but Genn was ready. He twisted the man he was holding into the path of the spear, letting it pierce through him, ending his life. He dropped the man, and leaped onto the hunter now struggling to draw his sword. The remaining archer let loose two arrows that wildly missed their target as the other two hunters ran to help their comrade, but it was too late, Genn ripped out his throat and turned to meet his enemies. Just as he was raising his arm to swipe down on the closest spearman, the archer finally found his aim and hit him in the leg. Genn howled in pain and rage as he crumpled to one knee. He fended off both spearmen, breaking one spear and ripping the other from the mans hands as they thrust at him, careful not to get too close.

In his distraction he did not notice the archer notch and release another arrow, this one catching him in his side. The two others also attacked at this same moment with their swords, but luck was not on their side. As the third arrow buried itself in his side, Genn’s vision turned red, all pain forgotten as an adrenaline fueled rage took control of him.

He pounced on the first man, ignoring the pain as he grabbed his sword by the blade and pushed it aside to claw the man to pieces. Taking another arrow in the shoulder, and a sword slash to his arm made him switch from the now dead man he had just mauled, to his last two opponents. He advance on the two, now standing side by side, striding quickly and deliberately towards them. He dodged an arrow as he reached for the archer, but just as he ripped the bow from the mans hands, he heard a shout. “Halt! Stay thyself, beast!” Genn whirled at the sound. “Let those men go unharmed!” The newcomer added. He was a tall well dressed man atop a large Gilneas stallion. His monocle and top-hat typical of the Gilnean noblemen these days. He was flanked by six armed men also on horseback, with the blood pumping in his ears Genn had never noticed their approach.

“And if i refuse?” Genn snarled in a low tone. “Then we shall dispatch you like the beast that you are for what you've done.” The man replied. “This is all a mistake, i never killed her! But then you Mistmantles will take any excuse to condemn a Greymane, won’t you? That’s what this is really about isn’t it? Both our families have been infected but you cover it up and pretend that it’s only us, you've already hunted down and killed my brother and his family, I should have known I was next!”

“That’s right you are next, for the death of our Lady Mistmantle, whom you murdered in cold blood! For this crime and for the crimes of your kind, you shall die this night!” The man declared.

As the cavalry advanced on him, Genn’s adrenaline rush faded. The agony of his wounds overcame him, and he slumped to the ground. As his vision faded, and the men closed in with weapons drawn, he gave a last hateful look to the mounted man and growled, “You’re making a mistake…”

It Was All a Mistake.Mama got out, it was all a mistake... she came home a week later but her tummy started to grow, it was all a mistake.. she was tossed out on the street and now i cry with my sibling. is a cruel world, but that was not all a mistake. mama tries to take care of us, but she is young and we are just hungry. Zoisite and Kunzite head pack to a path after stopping to get water because someone forgot to pack it. Zoisite stops in his tracks.. "i hear crying" he said. Kunzite looks at him, "I don't here a thing" he said. Zoisite walks up to a tree, with a hole in the bottom.. the crying is now loud and being made by a litter of kittens. we look as a human comes up to where we are, we cry for being hungry and cold.. mama gives a soft mew, and walks up to the human, soon we are in a box and at a place called the vet.. we are looked at and cleaned up. we are also given something they call a bottle "butttt Kunziteeeee" Zoisite whines... "they have no one" he adds. "maybe it was a mistake.. they got out" he said... "i don't think so, there would have been lost posters." zoisite said. Soon the mama and kittens were on their way home. mama now gets all the food she can eat, and we get to nurse to full our tummies. we have soft blankets to lie on, and we are loved. we are no longer mistakes. we are loved and cared for.

It had started simply, but nothing ever remained simple at the Reality Altering Factory. A young Ms. Smith, working in the genetics facility, received a notice of termination instead of a young assembly-line worker with a similar name.Annabelle Smith’s eyes widened when she received the notice. All those years at college, the fourteen months job-searching, and fired, just two months after getting her job. “But I worked so hard,” she told her coworker to her right, as her coworker to the left stared at a screen and twitched.“Maybe it’s a mistake? Look at the top of letter. It says Anna Smith. You think they wouldn’t mess up your name like that,” Beatrice Caridad, the coworker to the right, said. Beatrice had received a lifetime-guarantee job at the Factory after a time traveler accidentally replaced her father the day he courted their mother, erasing the man- and their resulting child- from the timeline. She was now a temporal anomaly, and would disappear from existence if she left the factory. She had permanent job security. What did she know about the fear of being fired?Annabelle’s heart hardened that day. Or perhaps it was always black. On her way home from work, she purchased a gun.I don’t know how she used a single gun to get to the uppermost layer of clearance in the Factory. I suspect that our rival company, Reality Manipulation Corporation, probably altered a few things to get Annabelle that far. My memory of that day is hazy.What I do recall is the alterations Annabelle made to that world. A fired murderer one day; CEO of the company the next. The true CEO, Patrick Robertonal, became a prisoner in a tiny Washington DC jail cell. And, inexplicably, temporal anomaly Beatrice Caridad woke up outside the factory, as a dictator of a temporal anomaly city-state located to the east of Disney World.Annabelle was an aggressive CEO. She shut down the Reality Manipulation Corporation and took over the United States by the end of the month. She was assassinated at the end of the year, and her assassin took control of the factory. Three iterations have happened since then. To think, four iterations ago, such a simple mistake revolutionized and shrunk our small world.All manipulation machines have been destroyed, save this last one. Everyone has been shuffled, and no one remains in or recalls their lives in the countries of their birth, save me. I am the Great Historian, and even I cannot recall what manipulations happened before Annabelle Smith was fired that fateful day. Reality has remained stable for fifty years, but now, once more, it is fluctuating.I know what I must do. I recall the appearance of the woman that handed Annabelle Smith her termination notice. I was too scared to speak at the time, for something in that old woman’s eyes made my blood cold. Now I know why: that old woman was me.I have located the janitor, in the past, assigned with the task of delivering the termination notice to Anna Smith. I’ve set the reality manipulation coordinates, and I will switch places with this janitor.Please. Once I have placed the termination notice in Annabelle Smith’s hands… Once the mistake has occurred… Please break this machine. It has served its function: it has created paradise. Using it again would be a dreadful mistake, that would unravel our utopian realities. And treat the janitor that I will swap places with well. For he will have even clearer memories of the pre-manipulated word, and I, the Great Historian, urge you to write down all that he remembers, as you have written down all I remember.Now wish me luck on this mission, on recreating this simple mistake.